Saluting the women who tee it up to help fight breast cancer

George Ferguson From the fringe...

During last week's U.S. Open at Bethpage State Park in New York, the plight of Phil Mickelson was well documented. If you follow golf, you couldn't help but pull for Mickelson as he played with a heavy heart knowing his family was going through much more diffi- cult times than just wondering if he was going to win a golf tournament. M i c k e l - son's wife Amy is battling the early stages of breast cancer, a disease that is as prevalent in our society as the common cold during a Montana winter or at least it seems that way. And while Amy Mickelson and her family will do their absolute best to deal with the terrible disease in a courageous manner, it makes me hope that we as a society are doing enough to fight the battle against breast cancer. According to recent information, one in every eight women in the United State will be diagnosed with a form of the disease, and in 2008, over 40,000 women in this country died from a form of breast cancer, while more than one in four women diagnosed with cancer is diagnosed with breast cancer. Those are staggering numbers when we're talking about one single disease. Breast cancer has touched my life and I know it has touched so many others. My sister-inlaw is a current breast cancer survivor, and with the numbers I just listed, it seems likely that we all know or are close to someone who has had, does have or will have breast cancer. And while we see pink ribbons, commercials, telethons and fund raisers to help fight the disease, we as a society should feel obligated to keep up the fight. No matter how hard these economic times may be, we have to fight this battle in any way we can because this disease doesn't discriminate and it isn't going away. It affects our wives, our mothers, our sisters, our children and our friends. And Havre and the Hi-Line should take note of what our local female golfers are doing to help fight the good fight. On Saturday at Prairie Farms Golf Course, the women will have the course to themselves as they play an 18-hole tournament to help raise money for breast cancer research and treatment of the disease. Our local female golfers having been putting on the tournament for several years now, and it's one of the most popular events on the local summer golf circuit. Even the men get involved as they are auctioned of as caddies for the day. While most of the time, we play golf tournaments to raise money for good causes, there is no better golf tournament in which someone could give their time and money to than this one in my opinion. Havre's breast cancer tournament is to me, the singlemost important 18 holes of golf played in our community every summer, and that includes my own golf game. I salute the local women, and even the men who are involved with the tournament each and every year, and it gives me hope that we as a community, a society and as people of the human race, are doing whatever we can to fight a disease that has come into and will come into so many of our lives